From the Wall Street Journal (gated) during the US morning on Tuesday, BOJ may raise inflation forecast:

  • The Bank of Japan may raise its price forecasts next week as it reaffirms it is on track to meet its inflation goal, brushing aside skepticism from private economists.
  • A raising of its forecasts could further weaken expectations of any early moves by the central bank to increase its stimulus efforts following recent remarks by (Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kuroda) ruling out additional monetary easing measures for the time being
  • key factor underlying any rise in the forecasts is likely to be the latest price data from Tokyo due out later this week
  • At the meeting scheduled on April 30 the bank’s board members will release their latest outlook report on prices and growth rates (last updated in January, the semiannual report will cover the current Japanese financial year started this month and the following two years.)

More:

The journal quotes an unnamed sources:

  • Bank is likely to consider raising its forecast for the ongoing financial year from the current 1.3%, if April price data for the Tokyo metropolitan area due later this week prove strong
  • Impressive Tokyo CPI numbers “would very likely change by 0.1 percentage point or 0.2 percentage point”
  • “Officials are expecting strong price growth. A number of companies appear to have raised retail prices more sharply than the three percentage point increase in the national sales tax earlier this month, the people said. The sales tax went up to 8% from 5% on April 1. Encouraged by recovering domestic demand, the firms probably took advantage of the tax increase to carry out additional price markups they had long put on hold during years of stagnation in Japan.”

–

Adam had this earlier, here: BOJ concerned about upside inflation risks – WSJ